"We're waiting on Google Play services to come for this device." Sure, the hardware works like a dream and the software, while a little bare-bones and boring, doesn't look offensive at all. Nokia gives the device regular OTAs and while the proprietary "N Store" is all in Chinese, you can grab plenty of the usual apps through APK Mirror or alternative app stores. Heck, take a plunge and look around the "N Store," it's not like it's poisonous ... just extremely foreign. "We're waiting on Google Play services to come for this device." Oh, there's still that. Welcome to the ecosystem. Funny ...

Every version of Android that comes out is followed by a good amount of hot-fixes and small revisions coming in the form of revision updates, and Lollipop is absolutely no exception. The team at Google in Mountain View today has released a new Android 5.1 build, making some bug-fixing changes from the last version while still keeping the codebase very similar (even the jump in version number is very slight). The updated build has hit AOSP and Google's factory image site, so here's more information. The update is tagged Android 5.1.0_r3, indicating that this is the third revision of Android ...

Want to get a couple people arguing about mobile device interface design? Raise the topic of windowed apps. To some, windowing represents an inevitable step forward for maturing mobile platforms, embracing the aesthetic of the desktop and empowering users to reach new heights of productivity. Others will view it as a move backwards, one away from a clean one-handed UX and relying too strongly on misguided nostalgia. While we've seen individual efforts from certain OEMs in delivering a modern multi-window UI on their phones, Android's lacked a central framework for such software operation ...

Of all the major Android manufacturers out there, Sony's been one of the most vocal when it comes to supporting the dev community, and a big part of those efforts has been Sony's work at making AOSP builds available for many of its models, phones and tablets alike. We've been watching it work at this for years now, and today the company announces that it's just hit a pretty noteworthy accomplishment along these lines, completing AOSP coverage for every Xperia model running a Snapdragon chip that's been released this year. The last hold-outs to join the rest of the Xperia family with AOSP ...

Listeners to today's Pocketnow Weekly podcast already know how stricken we are with some of the new features in Android 5.0 Lollipop. While only having had the opportunity to try out the public release on a Nexus 9, our interactions have been so promising that we're itching for our Nexus 6 to arrive and give us a chance to see what the finished Lollipop has to bring to smartphones. Owners of existing Nexus models are eagerly awaiting for their own Android 5.0 updates to arrive (something that could begin happening as early as next week, if the rumors we've heard pan out), and third-party ...

If you can remember it from the torrent of news that was Google I/O 2014, HTC announced that its 2013 and 2014 flagships would be seeing prompt updates to the latest version of Android after the availability of final code in the fall. Well, fall's here (and with it, the day we've all been waiting for), and HTC has finally confirmed to the masses that final Lollipop code is in its hands, and the 90-day timer for the HTC One M8 Lollipop update has officially begun. First up for the update will likely be HTC's Google Play Edition One M8, considering the fact that it runs an unadulterated ...

With last fall's release of Android 4.4 KitKat, Google introduced an experimental new runtime, ART. As opposed to the Dalvik virtual machine, ART promised speed improvements at the cost of storage space – or at least, that was the idea. In reality, the speed boosts could be hard to see, and compatibility issues that broke certain apps prevented ART from being a slam dunk. Nevertheless, the option has been there for users interested in trying it out. Lately, though, we've been seeing evidence suggesting that Google had improved ART to the point where it was getting ready to go mainstream, ...

Android 4.4 KitKat is the long-awaited upgrade to Google's Android operating systems for smartphones and tablets. Although it doesn't bring huge changes like many of us had hoped, the modifications are elegant and profound. Finally, the waiting is over, and Kitkat has been officially released, but unless you already have a Nexus 5 in hand, you probably don't have it. Luckily there are some builds out there that you can put on your own device, like we did with our Nexus 4, to get the KitKat experience there. Hit the play button, and let's go hands-on with Android 4.4 KitKat on the Nexus 4. ...

If you're an Android fan, and even the slightest big technically-minded, you probably understand that the platform is based around Linux. Underneath the Android runtime and all the code that makes Android “Android,” you'll find a Linux kernel. Right now, if you're running any recent build, that means your phone is on the 3.4 kernel – which itself dates back to May of last year; we are long overdue for an update. Recent signs point to work at doing something about that, bringing the Linux 3.10 kernel to Android in the near future. That's a big deal, because it would deliver a whole ...

Fans of stock Android have been enjoying a fair amount of good news lately. We just learned of that special Google Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S 4 the other day, and today we get to see Sony continue with its own support for Android development, releasing an AOSP project for its Xperia Tablet Z. You might remember that Sony did the same thing last month for the Xperia Z, following in the footsteps of last year's AOSP experiment with the Xperia S. Today the Xperia Tablet Z joins those two, and Sony claims that it intends to follow these all up with the Xperia ZL in the near future. As ...

Last summer, we learned that Google was taking the unusual step of adding a non-Nexus smartphone to the source repositories as part of the Android Open Source Project, with the introduction of a project for the Sony Xperia S. While that experiment wrapped-up several months later and saw the codebase move to a separate Sony-controlled repository, it was largely heralded as a success. With the Xperia S now showing its age, Sony is getting a more modern handset involved with the same sort of project, starting a new one to share AOSP code for the Xperia Z. This is still very much a ...

What is the AOSP? According to Google, the Android Open Source Project refers to the people, the processes, and the source code that make up Android. "The people oversee the project and develop the actual source code. The processes refer to the tools and procedures we use to manage the development of the software. The net result is the source code that you can use to build cell phone and other devices." Part of the AOSP is essentially a repository for ROMs, the software that we run on our phones and tablets. Not only is the generic, "core" operating system tucked away inside the AOSP, ...

Sony had "nothing to announce" regarding an official Jelly Bean update for the phone back in July and there's no word about it even today. On the eve of the Xperia SL unveiling, the Xperia S predecessor will become subject to a rather interesting experiment. Jean-Baptiste Queru, Technical Lead for the Android Open Source Project at Google, said: "For a new challenge, I'd like to try to go one step further, and to target some hardware beyond the usual categories. I've added a git project for the Sony LT26, i.e. Xperia S. This seems like a good target: it's a powerful current GSM ...

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is coming soon to a phone near you! Depending on how old you phone is, who makes it, and what carrier you're with it may not be coming to your phone -- but one near you, that's for sure!. Hopefully it will come to your phone, and hopefully it will be sooner than later. In the meantime, now that the source-code to Jelly Bean has hit the AOSP be ready for a whole slew of ROMs to start hitting the net! But before you get too excited, there are a few options you might want to know about. 1. Do you want to Root your phone and run a custom ROM? If you're using an "older" ...